VA VistA modernization could cost $350 million more

As reported by Government Health IT.



The Veterans Affairs modernization of its VistA clinical record system may eventually cost as much as $350 million more than its original budget, according to the Government Accountability Office.



The VA did not fully establish earned value management, a project management tool that tracks and reports project status and produces early warning signs of probable schedule delays and cost overruns. It also estimates anticipated completion costs.



“Without meaningful and coherent cost and schedule information, program managers can have a distorted view of a program’s status and risks,” said David Powner, director of GAO information technology issues.



VA is overhauling the VistA system because it is costly and difficult to maintain in its current implementation and does not integrate well with new software. The VistA modernization will include more standardization and common services and will support interoperability among the applications.



The VA originally estimated it would spend around $1.9 billion on the VistA modernization by 2016. About 10 percent of the project is complete.



VA partially applied the earned valued managed practices, the GAO report said, but the agency did not adequately detail the scope of work needed for each group of activities in the project. It also didn’t use the earned value data to make key management decisions.



The iem on VistA was part of a GAO probe of 16 federal agency IT programs.



In a written response, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said that the VA found in its own review of major IT projects that nine of the 26 projects placed under the Program Management Accountability System (PMAS) are from the VistA modernization program.



In June, VA put 45 IT projects on hold that were delayed or over budget as it deployed the PMAS, which incorporates earned value management practices, he said.